The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it.

sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a con­sid­er­able long time; so then I didn’t care no more about him, be­cause I don’t take no stock in dead peo­ple.

Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn’t. She said it was a mean prac­tice and wasn’t clean, and I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some peo­ple. They get down on a thing when they don’t know noth­ing about it. Here she was a-both­er­ing about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to any­body, be­ing gone, you see, yet find­ing a power of fault with me for do­ing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that was all right, be­cause she done it her­self.

After sup­per she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bul­rush­ers, and I was in a

Every­body was will­ing. So Tom got out a sheet of pa­per that he had wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore ev­ery boy to stick to the band, and never tell any of the se­crets; and if any­body done any­thing to any boy in the band, which­ever boy was or­dered to kill that per­son and his fam­ily must do it, and he mustn’t eat and he mustn’t sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band. And no­body that didn’t be­long to the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be killed.

“Now, we’ll start this band of rob­bers and call it Tom Sawyer’s Gang. Every­body that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood.”

We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made ev­ery­body swear to keep the se­cret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thick­est part of the bushes. Then we lit the can­dles, and crawled in on our hands and knees. We went about two hun­dred yards, and then the cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the pas­sages, and pretty soon ducked un­der a wall where you wouldn’t a no­ticed that there was a hole. We went along a nar­row place and got into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped. Tom says:

I didn’t know how I was go­ing to set still. This mis­er­able­ness went on as much as six or seven min­utes; but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itch­ing in eleven dif­fer­ent places now. I reck­oned I couldn’t stand it more’n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim be­gun to breathe heavy; next he be­gun to snore—and then I was pretty soon com­fort­able again.

Tom he made a sign to me—kind of a lit­tle noise with his mouth—and we went creep­ing away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom whis­pered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said no; he might wake and make a dis­tur­bance, and then they’d find out I warn’t in. Then Tom said he hadn’t got can­dles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn’t want him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there and got three can­dles, and Tom laid five cents on the ta­ble for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but noth­ing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play some­thing on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, ev­ery­thing was so still and lone­some.

We went tip­toe­ing along a path amongst the trees back to­wards the end of the widow’s gar­den, stoop­ing down so as the branches wouldn’t scrape our heads. When we was pass­ing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made a noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Wat­son’s big nig­ger, named Jim, was set­ting in the kitchen door; we could see him pretty clear, be­cause there was a light be­hind him. He got up and stretched his neck out about a minute, lis­ten­ing. Then he says:

“Who dah?”

He lis­tened some more; then he come tip­toe­ing down and stood right be­tween us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was min­utes and min­utes that there warn’t a sound, and we all there so close to­gether. There was a place on my an­kle that got to itch­ing, but I dasn’t scratch it; and then my ear be­gun to itch; and next my back, right be­tween my shoul­ders. Seemed like I’d die if I couldn’t scratch. Well, I’ve no­ticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the qual­ity, or at a fu­neral, or try­ing to go to sleep when you ain’t sleepy—if you are any­wheres where it won’t do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in up­wards of a thou­sand places. Pretty soon Jim says:

“Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn’ hear sumf’n. Well, I know what I’s gwyne to do: I’s gwyne to set down here and lis­ten tell I hears it agin.”

So he set down on the ground be­twixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched one of mine. My nose be­gun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes. But I dasn’t scratch. Then it be­gun to itch on the in­side. Next I got to itch­ing un­der­neath.

You don’t know about me with­out you have read a book by the name of The Ad­ven­tures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no mat­ter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is noth­ing. I never seen any­body but lied one time or an­other, with­out it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly—Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is—and Mary, and the Wi­dow Dou­glas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretch­ers, as I said be­fore.

Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the rob­bers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thou­sand dol­lars apiece—all gold. It was an aw­ful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at in­ter­est, and it fetched us a dol­lar a day apiece all the year round—more than a body could tell what to do with. The Wi­dow Dou­glas she took me for her son, and al­lowed she would siv­i­lize me; but it was rough liv­ing in the house all the time, con­sid­er­ing how dis­mal reg­u­lar and de­cent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and sat­is­fied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was go­ing to start a band of rob­bers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be re­spectable. So I went back.

The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn’t do noth­ing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing com­menced again. The widow rung a bell for sup­per, and you had to come to time. When you got to the ta­ble you couldn’t go right to eat­ing, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grum­ble a lit­tle over the vict­uals, though there warn’t re­ally any­thing the mat­ter with them—that is, noth­

odds and ends